HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY
CHAPTER I
OUR SUBJECT SOMEWHAT EXPLAINED
The Beginning of Warren County’s History – Date of Organization – Its Boundaries – Its Area and Streams – Origin of its Name – The System to be Pursued in Succeeding Chapters.
On that eventful mid – summer’s day in 1749 when Captain Bienville de Céleron, “Knight of the Royal and Military Order of St. Louis,” in command of two hundred and fifteen French soldiers and fifty – five Indians, appeared on the south bank of the Allegheny River, opposite the mouth of Conewango Creek, there buried, an engraved leaden plate, and, with the display of much pomp and ceremony, formally assumed possession of this and adjoining regions vast in extent, in the name of the reigning king of France, a stand – point was reached; a beginning, as it were, was made in the real, well authenticated history of Warren county, Pennsylvania. But, in the endeavor to explain the long and interesting chain of events which led up to this occupation by the French, to describe the conflicting claims of the English and their various operations, civil as well as military, in the effort to obtain possession of the same territory, and to briefly outline the history of the primordial inhabitants of “these cantons,” it is found necessary to go delving back in the past, two centuries or more before the advent of Celeron upon these shores, to gather up the threads of an historic narrative which, upon perusal, it is believed will not prove uninteresting to the reader.
Warren county was not organized as a separate shire until the year 1819. Hence, as foreshadowed in the preceding paragraph, a large – and by far the most interesting – part of its history had at that time already taken place. It is deemed necessary, therefore, to point out that the subject of this work is the territory comprised within the present boundaries of the county of Warren, together with its inhabitants, no matter whether the events recorded occurred before or after the beginning of the independent existence of the county.
The county of Warren, in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is bounded on the north by the State of New York, or, in other words, by the line of the forty – second degree of north latitude; on the east by McKean county, on the south by Forest and Venango counties, and on the west by the counties of Crawford and Erie. In extent it is about thirty – two miles in length from east to west, by twenty – six miles in width, and contains fully eight hundred square miles of territory, or five hundred and twelve thousand acres of land. Its most important stream, the historic Allegheny, entering near the northeast corner and flowing southwesterly, divides its territory into two distinct parts, leaving about three – eighths of it on the southeast side. The tributaries of the Allegheny, of sufficient size to be useful for propelling machinery or floating rafts, are Willow Creek, Sugar Run, and Kinzua Creek, entering from the east, and Cornplanter and Hemlock Runs, and Conewango, Brokenstraw, Tidioute, and West Hickory Creeks, entering from the west; the Kinzua, Conewango, and Brokenstraw being navigable from ten to twenty miles, for rafts of timber and manufactured lumber.
The county seat, and subsequently the county, were named after Joseph Warren, the distinguished American patriot who fell at the battle of Bunker Hill in 1775, and who was but eight years of age at the time Celeron made his appearance at the mouth of the Conewango.
We have been thus particular in designating the location and the limits of the county in the beginning in order to place the subject of this history clearly before the reader. Whatever has existed or occurred within those limits, or has been done by the residents of the territory in question, comes within the scope of this work and, if considered of sufficient consequence, will be duly noticed. It will be necessary, also, to frequently refer to outside matters, in order to make plain the early annals of the county and to show the succession of events. Such extraneous references, however, will be very brief and will be confined chiefly to a few of the earlier chapters. Further, when “Warren county” is spoken of previous to the naming of that county, it will be understood that the words are used to avoid indirect expression, and mean the territory now included within its boundaries. So, too, for convenience, the lands now comprised in a township or village will sometimes be mentioned by its present name, before any such township, etc., was in existence.
SOURCE: Page(s) 13-14, History of Warren County, J.S. Schenck & W.S. Rann, Syracuse, New York: D. Mason, 1887
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